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Sunday, June 28, 2015

#93: Devil May Cry: Why Dante Shouldn't Be Taken Seriously

For a long time, I
avoided the Devil May Cry franchise. There was no real reason behind
it other than a sheer lack of interest. During that time, people
would tell me about how great the protagonist, Dante, was as a
character. They would rarely get into specifics, because this was
back in middle school and kids that age rarely think critically about
anything, but it was clear that my peers held some reverence for him.
Similarly, when the reboot was announced, and the backlash against
his redesign was so great, I took the angry fans at their word that
this new Dante had blasphemed upon the old one.

Then, the Devil May
Cry reboot went free for the PS3 as part of Sony's PlayStation Plus
subscription service. This was the perfect excuse to satisfy my
curiosity and discover exactly how awful this new Dante was. Much to
my surprise, I found myself liking the redesign. There were a few
poorly written and badly delivered lines, but nothing terrible.
Despite this, I still took the word of those who believed that the
Dante from the previous games was "superior". This changed
when, recently, I played the first three Devil May Cry games.

Though I like the
old Dante, he was far from what he had been made him out to be.
Frankly, he was not as great of a character as people seem to think
that he is. In fact, he wasn't even really much of a character at
all, though that might not necessarily be his fault. The first two
entries in the franchise were extremely light in story content,
choosing to focus primarily on gameplay and level design. That's not
a problem for either game as a whole, but it gives Dante only scant
few opportunities to express himself in any meaningful way.

It was not even
until the third game that the developers began to delve into his
character. Even then, most of that story focused on the rest of cast,
with Dante himself acting more like a plot device that other
characters had to plan around. He himself admits that there wasn't a
significant motivation for participating in the plot at first. The
only reason the demon hunter was there is that killing demons is just
a thing that he does, like breathing, or walking around without a
shirt. It is rare for these three games to give him time to interact
with other people, which hinders his characterization.

When Dante does get
those chances, what we see isn't bad, but it also isn't enough to
justify his loyal fandom. In the first game, most of his dialogue
consist of the cheesy one-liners you might expect to hear in a
low-budget B-movie. Almost every boss fight in the game is punctuated
by insults or quick barbs from our protagonist. Even when mourning
the death of his partner, Dante can't help but deliver his line in
the most cornball way possible. Devil May Cry 3, set before the
events of the first game, placed even greater emphasis on these
traits, giving a younger Dante more of a stereotypical frat boy
personality. Channeling this persona, Dante can boldly walk up to
Cerberus and jest about "taking the dog out for his 'walkies'",
as only one example of what kind of individual he is.

Now, there is
nothing wrong with this character archetype. It fits very well with
Devil May Cry, since the franchise is clearly aiming for a campy,
humorous tone. However, it's not a style that is special in and of
itself. The designers didn't take it too seriously, and they didn't
want the fans to take it seriously either. Yet when Ninja Theory
announced DMC: Devil May Cry, and Dante's redesign, there was a
massive backlash from the fans. The original trilogy would scoff at
the mere notion of being anything more than silly romps through the
story of a straight-to-DVD movie, yet fans had elevated them to the
status of sacred cows.

The Dante from the
reboot wasn't even that much better or worse than the old one. His
one-liners weren't amazing, but neither were those from his
progenitor. Compare this joke from the Beowulf boss fight in Devil
May Cry 3 to this one from the Succubus fight in the reboot.
Obviously the scene from the reboot is a bit "edgier" and
more profanity-laden that the former. However, the actual content of
both scenes is extremely similar. I remember hearing a lot of
complaints the new Dante was trying too hard to look cool back when
the reboot first came out. However, the scenes from the old Devil May
Cry games make it clear that the old Dante was trying equally hard to
look cool. The lines before both of those boss fights are lame:
that's why people enjoyed them in the first place.

So what is the
underlying point behind all of this? Despite the nostalgia people
feel for the old Dante, there is no reason why the two have to be
incompatible. Neither one of them are inherently superior to the
other. While the old Dante went for an "Awesome McFly Guy"
persona, and the rebooted one went for a modern "edgy"
identity, both are strong examples of characters who try their best
to look cool without actually being cool. That's why we like them so
much. Even though they are clearly much stronger and more capable
than we are, these cheesy lines and lame personalities help us to see
parts of ourselves in them. And since both of them can fight these
monsters with a sly grin and a quick wit, we don't have to take those
same monsters as seriously either. They both help carry the tone of
the games they star in, and Devil May Cry as a brand is all the
stronger for it.